After a virtually sleepless sleep-period, he went to breakfast. The settlers were in a happy chattering mood. Titan was only ten days away. Unterzuyder ate with the pressure of the Beechers' eyes on him.
Nathaniel Beecher showed quiet menace on a face that ordinarily held grinning, shifty-eyed comraderie. Fayette had sullen, angry shadows under her eyes. Perhaps she was smarting under a humiliation that might make her do dangerous things. He had left her rather abruptly at the dance. Unterzuyder bit his lip. Perhaps he had not covered that situation as well as he might.
Remorse was an emotion new to Unterzuyder. But then he had suffered some kind of mental upset when his glasses shattered under Fayette's heel. He could see as well as the next man, and consequently was beginning to have some shattering doubts about the wisdom of his immediate ancestors. And he was a man.
He gulped. All these were dangerous thoughts. He must continue to think like an Unterzuyder.
Something devious. Something tricky. Something that would competently accomplish the task of fooling the Beechers, Bigger Bailes, and possibly Foshag!
As he started out of the dining room, Beecher lunged after him, trailing a rocket-stream of cigar smoke.
"A minute, Straley!" Beecher held him from the door, his close-set eyes full of dislike. "Foshag told me Bigger Bailes is back there." He jerked a shoulder. "You're a man with many small tricks, Straley," he went on slowly. "Probably you're the most dangerous man I've ever encountered. I've been around."
"I'll bet you have!"
Beecher gestured with the cigar, turned on his grin, apparently to convince anybody watching that this was a friendly conversation.